August 2013

August 27, 2013

We're on one last quick trip before school starts and then it's business as usual around here. If you're planning on robbing our house while we're away, you should know two things: 1) All of our valuables were sold off years ago, including the 14-karat gold switch plates and diamond-crusted toilet seats, so you're too late for those. Sorry. 2) I've taken the liberty of stashing vast amounts of poison ivy booby traps around the rest of our items that we don't want to part with. For those of you hell bent on looting 10 years worth of my kids' artwork and/or my computer, there will be a price to pay. Yes, my poison-ivy-based security system was tricky to deploy (you don't want to look at the right side of my face right now, believe me), but I'd like to think it's worth it.

August 23, 2013

Have I told you guys what a crappy pizza maker I am? No? Well, let me tell you, it is a sad, sad state of affairs when it comes to homemade pizza around here. Puffy crusts. Underbaked bottoms. Flabby, floppy slices. I'm a disgrace to my people.

I love Neapolitan-style thin-crust pizza. That's what I strive for when I make pizza at home. But it has taken years of off-and-on practice before I've made any real progress toward those coveted crispy crusts. And that progress has come in the form of cheating by buying Russo's already-made pizza dough. You see, I wasn't sure if my problem was my dough-making technique, or my stretching technique, or both, so I decided to limit one of the variables. A bag of good-quality Russo's dough, which is practically homemade, costs 98 cents. That's a price I'm willing to pay for good pizza! But what I found was that my pizzas kept coming out the same as when I made my own dough: Too puffy and not crispy enough.

I decided to cut the ball of pre-made dough in half and make two smaller pizzas. The size of my pizzas is limited by the size of my pizza stone, which isn't terribly big. With half the amount of dough, I figured I could stretch it to near transparency and still have it fit on the stone. And maybe, just maybe, the crust would be thin enough.

Did it work? Last Friday's pizzas were the best I've ever made. Now maybe I can attend my family reunions without shame. Some things that also seemed to help: Preheat the oven as high as it can possibly go (mine stops around 500°F). Let the pizza stone heat up in there for at least an hour beforehand. Press out the dough as thinly as you possibly can. Then really stretch it in whatever clumsy manner works for you. I don't fling it up in the air or anything—that would surely end in disaster—but I do try to use gravity to my advantage. Any holes that develop can be pressed back together.

To transfer the pizza to the oven, here's what I do. I set the dough on a sheet of parchment paper (not waxed paper) on top of a cookie sheet, and assemble the pie. Then I slide the pizza and parchment paper from the cookie sheet onto the hot stone in the oven. The parchment definitely gets toasty in there, but it's never caught fire on my watch. I know exactly where my fire extinguisher is, just in case, as well as all emergency exits.

[I actually bought myself a pizza peel for my birthday last year to cut down on the potential number of trips the local fire department has to make to my house, but let me tell you how that all worked out. When I slid the pizza onto the stone in one quick motion, all of the toppings—the meat, veggies, cheese, sauce—flew into the oven right on cue...but the dough remained on the peel. This despite the fact that I liberally sprinkled the peel with cornmeal beforehand. The dough just sat there mocking me as the cheese melted all over the racks and everything else burned in the bottom of the oven. (Cue fire truck sirens.) That peel and I still aren't on speaking terms.]

Anyhoo, my pizza-making technique is a work in progress, but I'm optimistic that I'll soon be able to graduate to making my very own pizza dough (though at 98 cents a bag for two good-sized pizzas, why bother). I do make my own tomato sauce. For cheese, I use regular store-bought shredded mozzarella sometimes with a little shredded local Cheddar mixed in, and a sprinkling of good Parmesan cheese on top. I don't use balls of fresh mozzarella on my pizzas because I've never liked the way it melts. It looks like spackle or bird poop. I'm a shitty Italian.

In case you're interested, here are some of our favorite homemade pizza flavors:

Pepperoni: Self-explanatory.

Hamburger, pepper, and onion: Ground beef, bison, or Italian sausage browned in a little bacon fat with garlic powder and whatever seasonings you like. Scatter on top of the sauce and cheese along with thinly sliced raw green peppers and onions.

Barbecue chicken: Use barbecue sauce instead of tomato sauce (I like Stubb's), toss some leftover shredded chicken with some of that barbecue sauce before scattering it over the cheese, and sprinkle liberally with sliced scallions.

Caramelized onion and goat cheese: My favorite (pictured above). No sauce, just a little olive oil brushed on the crust before topping with mozzarella. Cook the sliced onions for 30 to 45 minutes in a little olive oil and salt until soft, browned, and sweet. Arrange the onions in clumps on the pizza along with crumbles of goat cheese and chopped fresh rosemary. I usually sprinkle some Parmesan on there, too.

Radicchio: A Waltham Fields Special, sauté up some radicchio in a little olive oil for a few minutes until wilted (you can add a little balsamic vinegar if you wish). Proceed as in the previous pizza, subbing the radicchio for the onions and using plenty of goat cheese. It is delicious.

August 18, 2013

August 15, 2013

Last week, one of my sons asked for homemade blueberry muffins. That might not seem like an odd request, but it is. The child in question is a purist. He prefers his food in stable, sequential, non-overlapping arrangements—not suspended in unpredictable matrices, juices running all over the place. He eats his hamburgers with no ketchup, his salad with no dressing, and his pancakes with no syrup—and certainly no blueberries.

I can respect that position. But I also can't resist the opportunity to promote my favorite "food on the foods" (or "food in the foods," as the case may be), especially when it's all his idea. Luckily, we had a quart of blueberries we'd just picked at Carver Hill Orchard.

I made the muffins right away. I admit, I've grown accustomed to glowing reviews on my baked goods, but I didn't even come close this time. He politely choked down one muffin, and then wouldn't touch any of the others.

I couldn't help being a little disappointed, but I reminded myself that it often takes several tries to appreciate something new. Kids aren't going to like everything you make—not even close. Or maybe, just maybe, my blueberry muffins SUCKED! What kind of a cookbook author can't make a simple muffin? You mix everything together in a bowl with a spoon!

When I asked him what he didn't like about it, he said: Too many blueberries.

Too many blueberries? I secretly scoffed. There's no such thing as too many blueberries. He loves blueberries. We all love blueberries. How can there be too many blueberries in anything ever? I took a defiant bite out of one of the muffins and it was delicious. See?

Then I tried to view that same muffin from a kid's perspective. Here's what I saw: 20 percent muffin, 80 percent purple goo.

Okay, so maybe the kid has a point. Maybe not so many blueberries next time!

August 12, 2013

I found this lovely bowl at TJ Maxx for under $10. The label said it was handmade in Poland. I'm pretty sure nothing made of hand-shaped hot molten glass should cost under $10. I hope that doesn't mean underpaid, underage workers are being chained to high-temperature glass-blowing equipment so that I can enjoy my precious trifle. I was conflicted about buying it at such a great price until another woman made a move toward the footed bowl, and suddenly my inner conflict was resolved. 'Cause, you know, it was already made. I wouldn't want all that work to go unappreciated.

This recipe is not a trifle exactly. A trifle is made with layers of boozy cake, custard, and fruit. This dessert is made with chocolate cookies, no booze (shame on me!), and coffee-flavored whipped cream, making it "technically" another version of icebox cake. But I put it in a trifle dish, so I'm calling it a trifle. It's a breeze to make and puts those amazing fresh summer berries on the pedestal they deserve. When assembling the dessert, try not to squash all the layers to the very edge of the bowl if you can. Better to leave a little space along the sides so you can see all the layers intact. That's why the top half of my trifle up there looks so much better than the bottom half. I wised up eventually.

In a large bowl, whip the cream with the confectioner's sugar, espresso powder, and vanilla starting on low and gradually increasing to medium speed for 4 to 5 minutes until the cream thickens and forms soft peaks when the beaters are lifted. You don't want the cream over-whipped to the consistency of spray confetti. The cream mixture should still be smooth, but mound easily and hold its shape when you spread it.

Add a very thin layer of the whipped espresso cream to the bottom of your serving vessel of choice. Add a single layer of chocolate wafers. On top of that, add a layer of cream. Scatter some berries on top of the cream. Repeat the order (cookies, cream, berries) for as many layers as you can fit in your trifle dish until you run out of ingredients or space, ending with the berries. (For an 8x8-inch casserole dish, you can fit 2 or 3 layers.)

Refrigerate the trifle covered for at least 4 hours or overnight. Be forewarned that it is virtually impossible to serve this dessert in a neat and tidy way. Just accept it and move on. Showtime was back when everything was on display in the trifle bowl and now showtime is over. It still tastes great.

August 08, 2013

Last week, I made that Italian tomato and bread salad everyone's always talking about: panzanella. It was a riff on a recipe I saw in Homemade with Love by Jennifer Perillo and Penny de los Santos (good book, by the way). I grilled the bread, brushing it with olive oil beforehand and rubbing it with a garlic clove afterwards. Then I cubed the toasty bread and tossed it with fresh farm tomatoes, chopped basil, parsley, and marjoram from my neighbor's garden, a little vinaigrette, and some crumbled feta cheese I had in the fridge.

The kids thought it was "weird" until I explained that it's just like salad except all of the lettuce was traded in for extra croutons. Then they were pretty okay with it. The adults thought it was really good, but someone made a whole giant bowl of the stuff and you can only eat so much. At least that was Husband's excuse. So I put plastic wrap over the top and saved it for the next day even though I knew what was going to happen. By tomorrow, it would be a spongy, disgusting mess. Who wants to eat a bunch of soggy croutons? No one, that's who.

Over one shoulder appeared a miniature version of Husband wearing a pair of plastic red horns on his head. You're never going to eat the rest of that, he said. Just throw it away. You can throw it away now, or you can throw it away later once an entire new micro-civilization has evolved. But, either way, it's going in the garbage.

Over the other shoulder appeared a miniature version of someone else who looked kind of familiar except she was wearing a flowy white dress over her jeans, which is very out of character. She was also holding a dinner plate over her head like some kind of a halo, which it clearly was not. Nevertheless, she implored me to keep it. Just keep it around for a day or two. It'll totally still be good. Think of all the starving people, blah, blah, blah.

So I saved the leftover panzanella and pulled it out for lunch the next day. It was even more horrible than expected. Why is cold, mushy bread so vile? But then I had an idea. An epiphany, really. Why not make soup? The Spaniards sometimes thicken gazpacho with bread. The Wednesday Chef has an amazing tomato soup recipe on her blog that is bread-based. What would happen if I just dumped the leftover panzanella into a pot with a can of tomatoes and cooked it for, oh, 10 to 15 minutes?

August 06, 2013

A few people have asked whether I plan to follow my winter dessert cookbook with a summer dessert cookbook. The answer: Probably not. I think I've already proven that I can't be trusted in any scenario where I have 24-hour access to dessert. The other reason is, come summertime, the last thing I want to do is turn on the oven. I'll do it once in a while when we get a stretch of dry air and mild temperatures like we've had this past week, but not during the sweltering, blast-furnace heat of the previous weeks. No, thank you. I'll have a whole eternity in hell as Lucifer's personal pie baker for that.

But I still have a sweet tooth that just won't quit. In other words, I'm still making dessert occasionally, just mostly no-bake ones. And by no-bake, I mean: no oven, no stove, no heat at all besides that which emanates from the horrible blazing sun you're presumably hiding from.

That's why I hereby declare this summer to be "The Summer of Icebox Cakes."

Icebox cake is a cool, creamy, layered affair that only improves with time sitting in the refrigerator (or icebox, as Nonni always called it). Graham crackers usually define the layers of whipped cream, mousse, or custard, but you can use other types of cookies, too. Think of icebox cake as a white-trash napoleon. A dumbed-down tiramisu. Don't let my disparaging language fool you, though. Simple, unpretentious icebox cakes can be perfectly delicious. My childhood version (made by Nonni on hot summer days) featured chocolate and vanilla pudding and sliced bananas between the graham cracker layers. We loved it.

My grown-up version alternates slices of fresh peaches with creamy whipped mascarpone and vanilla wafers. It's ridiculously fresh-tasting. And stupefyingly easy. Because there's so little to the recipe, it's especially important to use really good ingredients: super-ripe peaches, fresh organic cream, real mascarpone, and good-quality vanilla wafers. Not Nabisco Nilla Wafers. If you use those, you will ruin this recipe. You need something good. I recommend Mi-Del Vanilla Snaps from the "natural" aisle of the supermarket. Feel free to sneak a few raspberries in there, too, to get a peach melba thing going on. It's also fantastic with nectarines.

Peaches and Cream Icebox Cake

Once assembled, let the cake sit in the fridge for several hours before serving to give the peaches and cream a chance to soften the crispy cookies into spongy cake-like layers.

In a large bowl, whip the cream with the mascarpone, confectioner's sugar, and vanilla starting on low and gradually increasing the speed to medium for 4 to 5 minutes until the cream thickens and holds soft peaks when the beaters are lifted. The cream mixture should mound easily and hold its shape when you spread it.

Add a very thin layer of mascarpone cream to the bottom of an 8 x 8-inch pan. Line the pan with a layer of vanilla wafers. On top of that, add a layer of overlapping peach slices. Add a thick layer of mascarpone cream on top. Repeat the order for 1 or 2 more layers as desired, ending with cream on top. (If you run out of cookies, don't worry, just spread them out the best you can.)

Refrigerate the icebox cake for at least 4 hours or overnight. Slice and serve with a spatula.

August 01, 2013

Husband is a bit of a comic genius. He's especially good with voices and has several in his repertoire, including Maniac Mushroom Hunter. That's me, in case you couldn't guess. I went through a long mushroom phase, which I may or may not still be in, and he could barely tolerate it. The voice he so lovingly crafted is distinctly male and that of a dim-witted but insufferable college professor chastising anyone who will listen about the crucial differences between a hen of the woods and a chicken of the woods. The kids love that voice so much, they often request a performance before bed. I just roll my eyes and correct all of his mushroom misinformation as he goes along. That only encourages him.

While on vacation down the Cape, Husband came up with a new voice. And this time, it didn't have anything to do with me. We were traveling down Route 6A in Dennis when we passed a spot called Captain Frosty's. Now I've never been inside Captain Frosty's nor have I sampled their menu offerings, but the imagined Captain Frosty is now a fan favorite. Imagine a fierce but wistful pirate well into his golden years who fell into the restaurant business once he became unfit for plundering. The character bears some resemblance to one Mr. Krabs, except less ambitious and not an actual crab. He has a way with the fish 'n' chips, but he's having trouble changing with the times. He can't afford to hire help and sleeps in a cot in the back.

Here's a sampling from Captain Frosty (be sure to use your best pirate voice!):